500 to 1: It's game time!!

Hi!

So this was a jammed pack week filled with the spirit. We had zone conference and a mission conference with....Elder Russel M. Nelson! He is the funniest cutiest old man, besides Grandpa Sumsion;) Anyway, I just wanted to share some thoughts from both conferences and hopefully you can learn something from it too.

At zone conference, we focused all about baptism. We first talked about mentality and what we should focus. It brought back the memories of my high school basketball career. My coach would always tell us that an hour before the game we needed to focus our minds and thoughts and nothing else but basketball. I had another coach that said to think about shooting and playing the game while trying to fall asleep the night before. Sports is all about the mentality. If you think you are going to lose, you probably will. But if you think you are going to win, you probably will. So I stood up and shared my ideas and thoughts with the zone and I told them that everytime they walk out the door to go proselyte for the day, it is game time. So as a missionary, you must eat, sleep, dream, think about baptizing. If you think you won't baptize or that this person isn't ready, then it won't happen. But if you have the mentality that you can do anything with God on your side (and He wants His children to have the gospel) then you have a much higher chance. Don't forget agency though. But God knows their thoughts and feelings and can help you discern them and overcome any doubts or concerns so that they will accept the gospel. Best ever!

Then Elder Nelson talked about Gideon in Judges 7 and how the Lord minimized his army to 300 people. The enemy had 150,000 people. Talk about bad odds. That makes it 500 to 1. Then Elder Nelson talked about the numbers today. There are 14 million members and 6.6 billion people in the world. And it almost equals out to 500 to 1. Interesting.... He then talked about how the Lord has the unexpected to do the impossible. If you trust in the Lord and rely upon His strength and power then you can do impossible things. We will always be outnumbered by worldly standards. But I would rather but outnumbered and on God's side then on the side that might look bigger with worldly eyes.

The church is true!

Love, Sister Sumsion